I just wanted to clarify a misconception that many people have. When people talk about the top screen of the Nintendo 3ds, they seem to assume that when the 3d is turned on that the fps (frames per second) split, equating 30 fps for each eye. This is not the case as the 3d depth slide manipulates the screen itself instead of the hardware powering the screen. Sharp (the manufacturer supplying the screens) uses a technology which, when you use the depth slider, only manipulates the liquid crystals in the display to render the 3d effect. This is rather ingenious as this does not use a lot of processing power and only a small amount of battery power. Therefore the Nintendo 3ds is ALWAYS RUNNING 60 FPS. I just had to let everyone know...

I just wanted to clarify a misconception that many people have. When people talk about the top screen of the Nintendo 3ds, they seem to assume that when the 3d is turned on that the fps (frames per second) split, equating 30 fps for each eye. This is not the case as the 3d depth slide manipulates the screen itself instead of the hardware powering the screen. Sharp (the manufacturer supplying the screens) uses a technology which, when you use the depth slider, only manipulates the liquid crystals in the display to render the 3d effect. This is rather ingenious as this does not use a lot of processing power and only a small amount of battery power. Therefore the Nintendo 3ds is ALWAYS RUNNING 60 FPS. I just had to let everyone know...

So is it confirmed that all 3DS games will run at a constant framerate? Or will there be a possibility of more graphic intensive games, at the expense of a choppy framerate? You say that the 3DS is ALWAYS RUNNING 60 FPS, and I hope it's true, but I haven't heard this confirmed by a reliable source. Either way, this is interesting for those interested in tech specs and numbers, but the proof is really in the games. If the games run smooth, look good, and play well, then that's all that really matters.

People had a misconception about this? I haven't seen anything on the subject at least not since it was dispelled with the initial release of information on the system at E3.

DSfanatic: I think you're confused... the DS and GBA displays are at 60hz refresh rate (60 screen refreshes per second). This has absolutely nothing to do with in-game "rendered" FPS which is always a multiple of 60 to retain V-sync (generally 15, 30, or 60fps)

People had a misconception about this? I haven't seen anything on the subject at least not since it was dispelled with the initial release of information on the system at E3.

DSfanatic: I think you're confused... the DS and GBA displays are at 60hz refresh rate (60 screen refreshes per second). This has absolutely nothing to do with in-game "rendered" FPS which is always a multiple of 60 to retain V-sync (generally 15, 30, or 60fps)

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People do, they say something along these lines, "The 3ds has to work really hard when it is in 3d mode" as if the 3d uses up half of the processing power. It uses significantly less power than people are led to believe. I really uses more battery power than graphical/hardware power (and a small amount at that).

This is rather ingenious as this does not use a lot of processing power.

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3D as implemented in PS3:
1. frame for the left eye is rendered - glasses block the right eye
2. frame for the right eye is rendered - glasses block the left eye
3. frame for the left eye is rendered - glasses block the right eye
4. ...
Therefore, compared to 2D, this approach requires rendering twice as many frames in the same period of time. The framerate needs to be doubled, hence you need 120 Hz TV.

3D as implemented in 3DS renders frames for both eyes at the same time. The framerate stays the same, however you have to render twice as many pixels (800x240) as in the flat 2D mode (400x240) ! So there's no magic here, you still have to do twice as much work as in 2D. And what is even worse, due to the parallax barrier you probably cannot use the full screen resolution (800x240) in the flat 2D mode, which would be very useful e.g. for reading web pages.

As for the depth slider - who cares ? OK, it's nice it's implemented on the screen level, but reading a variable from the slider and feeding it to the game engine so it could tweak the difference between both eyes wouldn't really be computationally expensive.

This is rather ingenious as this does not use a lot of processing power.

Click to expand...

3D as implemented in PS3:
1. frame for the left eye is rendered - glasses block the right eye
2. frame for the right eye is rendered - glasses block the left eye
3. frame for the left eye is rendered - glasses block the right eye
4. ...
Therefore, compared to 2D, this approach requires rendering twice as many frames in the same period of time. The framerate needs to be doubled, hence you need 120 Hz TV.

3D as implemented in 3DS renders frames for both eyes at the same time. The framerate stays the same, however you have to render twice as many pixels (800x240) as in the flat 2D mode (400x240) ! So there's no magic here, you still have to do twice as much work as in 2D. And what is even worse, due to the parallax barrier you probably cannot use the full screen resolution (800x240) in the flat 2D mode, which would be very useful e.g. for reading web pages.

As for the depth slider - who cares ? OK, it's nice it's implemented on the screen level, but reading a variable from the slider and feeding it to the game engine so it could tweak the difference between both eyes wouldn't really be computationally expensive.

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To add to the PS3 comment, while it would have to double the framerate in the same amount of time, it sacrifices resolution to obtain it.

As far as the 3DS is concerned, I believe that no matter the 3DS setting, it will use the same amount of power and processing regardless. It will always have to render the same number of pixels as there is no physical 400x240 resolution, but aside from that, it most likely calculates positioning of polygons from two camera angles anyways, and in 2D mode, it will still calculate from two camera angles, but the attributes of the cameras like position and orientation are the same. Just thinking of consistency. However, if the camera attributes can be altered while in 2D mode, they could essentially make use of the full 800x240 by altering the cameras slightly.

Yes, the simplest and probably best way for it to work, is that the slider will change the location of one or both of the render cameras. When the slider is at the full position, the cameras are set apart so that the two views are from different angles, when the slider is set to off, then both cameras will be in the same position, so that identicle views are rendered.

I just wanted to clarify a misconception that many people have. When people talk about the top screen of the Nintendo 3ds, they seem to assume that when the 3d is turned on that the fps (frames per second) split, equating 30 fps for each eye. This is not the case as the 3d depth slide manipulates the screen itself instead of the hardware powering the screen. Sharp (the manufacturer supplying the screens) uses a technology which, when you use the depth slider, only manipulates the liquid crystals in the display to render the 3d effect. This is rather ingenious as this does not use a lot of processing power and only a small amount of battery power. Therefore the Nintendo 3ds is ALWAYS RUNNING 60 FPS. I just had to let everyone know...

To add to the PS3 comment, while it would have to double the framerate in the same amount of time, it sacrifices resolution to obtain it.
Maybe this is the case for PS3, but in general case it is not necessary to sacrifice resolution - you could e.g. lower textures' resolution, reduce polygon number, use simpler shaders...

QUOTE(DiscostewSM @ Nov 9 2010, 09:22 PM) As far as the 3DS is concerned, I believe that no matter the 3DS setting, it will use the same amount of power and processing regardless. (...) in 2D mode, it will still calculate from two camera angles, but the attributes of the cameras like position and orientation are the same. Just thinking of consistency.

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Obviously, most lazy-ass developers would do it as you're saying for the sake of consistency, but I don't think this is a must. For instance, MT Framework has antialiasing in 2D mode, and I guess they can afford it because they just render one camera view and free some processing power this way.

As far as the 3DS is concerned, I believe that no matter the 3DS setting, it will use the same amount of power and processing regardless. (...) in 2D mode, it will still calculate from two camera angles, but the attributes of the cameras like position and orientation are the same. Just thinking of consistency.

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Obviously, most lazy-ass developers would do it as you're saying for the sake of consistency, but I don't think this is a must. For instance, MT Framework has antialiasing in 2D mode, and I guess they can afford it because they just render one camera view and free some processing power this way.

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Everything is dependent on whether it is done through hardware or software, and I'm taking the side that it's doing things like handling the cameras in hardware, much like the DS does. With the DS, it did edge anti-aliasing, but when games didn't use it, it wasn't because they didn't have the processing capability to use it. It was because of it sharing operations with other effects, like polygon outlining. It could very well be that on the 3DS, anti-aliasing is not permit-table when using the 3D-effect as the hardware could lock it out, since the effect creates a natural blend anyways.

With the cameras, not only do I believe that it will only take a single set of camera information to derive two perspectives (done in hardware), but I also believe they do this method in hardware because there is no rational reason to be able to manipulate the perspectives individual outside of normal operation to generate the 3D effect. Anything not generating that would generate a headache for the users instead, since the perspectives would be independent like chameleon eyes. It's not because of lazy developers. It's because there's no reason not to have it set up this way. Most general operations that are used on a device are usually built into hardware as it will be faster and more stable than done in software, and I believe this is one of them.

3DS games can run at 60, 30, 15, etc to maintain Vsync... What the developers stated is that if they didn't want to run in 3d mode, their game which would normally run at 30fps (because of the fact that they pushed the 3ds hardware too much) could be made to run in 60fps if they trashed the 3d effect. This is NOT THE SAME as stating "If you use 3d effects you HAVE to run in 30fps". Many games are running at 60fps so far and many more will reach it by the time the system is released.

The system hasn't even been released yet... most developers won't have a proper "feel" for the system for at least another year, and the games won't get their prettiest until at least 2-3 years in. Plus, those developers kind of stated the obvious... It's kind of like saying "If I didn't spend all of my money buying 2 cheap candy bars, I could afford 1 more expensive candy bar."

I just wanted to clarify a misconception that many people have. When people talk about the top screen of the Nintendo 3ds, they seem to assume that when the 3d is turned on that the fps (frames per second) split, equating 30 fps for each eye. This is not the case as the 3d depth slide manipulates the screen itself instead of the hardware powering the screen. Sharp (the manufacturer supplying the screens) uses a technology which, when you use the depth slider, only manipulates the liquid crystals in the display to render the 3d effect. This is rather ingenious as this does not use a lot of processing power and only a small amount of battery power. Therefore the Nintendo 3ds is ALWAYS RUNNING 60 FPS. I just had to let everyone know...